Reminiscence Unfolding
by Harlequin2
Summary: The last Z Warrior alive Krillin contemplates his life.


Reminiscence Unfolding  
  
Marron looked up at the old Kame House. It had been ages since she had been there. All dusty and worn it looked as though no one lived there. But that wasn't true. With the exception of an old sea turtle and old man too lived here. A bald man. A short man… a nose-less man?  
  
She knocked on the door. After a minute the dusty old door was answered. "Hi Marron" said Turtle. "You're looking for Krillin aren't you? He's here somewhere."  
  
"Marron? That you?" An old man approached her. "On my little daughter…so nice to see ya! How old are ya now? 30?"  
  
"48 dad."  
  
"48! Man…wow! I mean…that…that isn't old or anything, I'm in my seventies! Oh…or is it my eighties… Well...uh, look at me blabbing. How you been holding up?"  
  
"I…I'm fine Dad."  
  
"Are ya? Well that's…that's good. Haven't had many visitors. Gohan stopped by a few months ago…"  
  
Marron smiled at her father. He seemed in as perfect health as he always been. A little problems with his memory. When Gohan had called her after visiting him he had expressed his concern.  
  
"It was funny. Y'know. When Gohan visited…he expected me to be crazy or something…I went along with it. Tried to get him worried."  
  
That gave Marron some hope. Gohan wouldn't be glad to here it though. That an 83 year old can outsmart a middle-aged leading scientist. Marron sighed, it didn't matter.  
  
"Well…only one bedroom is fit for guests…and that's mine. You can stay there, I'll sleep on the couch." Krillin stated.  
  
"Oh no Dad…I couldn't…"  
  
"Nonsense. My daughter is sleeping in a nice bed…I don't mind the couch…Now, it's late, you get some sleep. Tomorrow at the re-union everything's gonna be all jostled up."  
  
Marron said goodnight to her dad, and went into his room. It wasn't in the best of shape but then again even when he was younger her father wasn't tidy. Mom had always…" She shook her head. It was too painful.  
  
As she began to put her clothes in the cupboard when she saw an old red leather notepad, lone, in the back.  
  
She glanced at it. At once she recognized it as the pad he had bought while Goku, Trunks, and Pan were off in space. He said he would write down everything that happened there on Earth so they wouldn't miss a beat when they came back.  
  
He never wrote in it once.  
  
But as she looked through it she found out it had been written in…just once…as some sort of a diary entry.  
  
She slowly picked it up, and began to read.  
  
  
  
November 28-  
  
It is strange to think that one time I was on another planet. Though it has been years since it still seems impossible. Of recent everything seemed so…plebian…like, how could it happen to us? Fighters? We were the more powerful of all humans…and Saiyans…and Nameks. But were had been humbled by the death of most of our comerades. First Piccolo, then Goku. With Goku ended all our fightings, it was impossible to do it with out him, and truthfully he had really gotten rid of all that opposed us. Mr. Satan went first of all, and Ol' Roshi didn't live long after Goku, age had finally gotten him.  
  
Chi-Chi hadn't lasted long after Goku either. When she finally realized he was gone for good (She was the last one who did) she just gave up. Gohan and Goten spent her last with her. Gohan called me when it happened. It was on June 19, almost 31 years ago. she was 51. Her last words were "I'm coming husband!"  
  
Next was Yamcha. It's kind of funny, a morbid kind of funny, but it was odd that Yamcha went they way he did. The first time he died he went out fighting. Which was sort of an honorable way to go. But this time it was lung cancer. He had been that much of a smoker until after Bulma broke up with him. He drank a little too. He tried to hide it, but with little avail. He was 59 when he died, a sad life, no children or no wife.  
  
Though the year Yamcha died was sort of a nice year for me. The Tenkaichi Budokai was held and as I was the only one of us to participate I won for the first time…  
  
Two years later we said good-bye to Ox-King. He had had an un-happy couple of years, with his own daughter dead. I imagine that would be the worst feeling in the world. Something you created destroyed. He died peacefully though, in his sleep, simply of old-age. There was a lull for a while. No deaths and life went on as usual…and then…  
  
And then Vegeta.  
  
He died eight years ago, at the age of 79. His death was kind of confusing. Bulma said it was very sudden. Just the day before we had had a picnic. Vegeta of course wasn't an avid participant in the games. Though he and Trunks did whip all of our butts in the parent/child three legged race. Marron and I got third…whipped Gohan and Pan's ass! Stupid Bulma and Bra, I think they cheated. We should have gotten second…I'm digressing. The blood- thirst Saiyan was happy at the end of the day he carried the poor-excuse for a trophy we gave him and Trunks with him at dinner. Vegeta was laughing all through the night at anything that was said.  
  
The next day he was gone.  
  
Marron,# 18, and I sat next to Gohan and his family. We walked up to the casket together as my wife and daughter and his wife and daughter went with Bulma and Bra to make sure they were ok.  
  
As I stared at the body that had once been one of the most powerful beings in the universe I heard Gohan try to joke to make up for the akwardness "First Piccolo, then Dad, and now Vegeta. Think Frieza is back and is bumping off all the people who went to Namek?"  
  
I tried to smile. "If so, let's hope he takes Bulma before us…"  
  
And he did.  
  
Bulma died five years later in a plane crash. She and Trunks were on there way to visit Bra for her wedding, neither survived the crash. Bra was so upset she called it off.  
  
It was harder at Bulma's funeral then I guess at the rest. Not just because of Bulma's death. Though that was sad, but it was Trunks's funeral too. Marron was inconsolable. They had divorced two years earlier but still it was hard. I remember talking to Tien right after the funeral ended.  
  
"Seems you and me are two of the only one's left from the old days." Tien remarked.  
  
"Seems like it." I replied.  
  
"You know. You and 18 shouldn't be a stranger. Lunch and I don't get a lot of company. You should stop by sometime, to have dinner maybe, or just say hello."  
  
I realized this was a good idea. Most of my friends were dead, and it would nice to have one.  
  
"Sure," I replied. "That would be great. I'll see you."  
  
That was the last time I ever saw Tenshinhan.  
  
Two weeks later at a regular check-up, Tien had been discovered as a victim for a brain tumor. He had had it unknowingly for three years.  
  
Four weeks after that check-up, he died. But he, like Bulma, shared a funeral.  
  
Lunch out-lived her husband three days. She had a stroke.  
  
I remember this documentary on TV, it was about victims of heart- attacks and strokes. They interviewed this one guy who had survived a stroke and they asked him how he made it through.  
  
"I have a wife and children." The man said. "I had something I had to live for, so I needed to pull through."  
  
Her husband was dead, and she had no children. Lunch had nothing to live for.  
  
I write this now for I thing it should be known that sad all of those deaths of all my friends…all of them, added together and multiplied by a million doesn't even come close to the amount of pain that I went through yesterday.  
  
Yesterday, my wife died.  
  
There it ended. Marron saw no more writing anywhere in the book. She figured her father had been so upsetted by the incident that he could no longer write. The paper had been crumply all through-out Krillin's essay, the kind of crumply it got when a little bit of water went on paper. Probably these were from tears.  
  
She checked the date again. November 28. Sure enough that was the day after her mother died. It was in early May now. Almost 6 months after it happened.  
  
Marron was just staring at the vermillion leather-bound notebook on the bed, when a knock on the door shocked her back to reality. She quickly stuffed it under he bed and said, "Come in."  
  
Krillin walked in. "Hi! I was just saying I started making a cake a few minutes ago…should be ready in a few minutes, just wanted to know if you wanted one, you said you were going to bed but…"  
  
A smoky smell had drafted through the room and Marron immedieatly interrupted her father. "Dad! Do you smell that!"  
  
Krillin raised an eyebrow.  
  
"Ok…so you don't…but, I smell smoke."  
  
"Oh Damn! That would be the cake! Uh, I better check on it." He darted out the door as fast as his short old legs would take him.  
  
Marron looked at the the notebook one more time. Then carefull put it back where she found it. She sat on the bed, directly facing the old pine cupboard that held her father's deepest feelings and pains.  
  
"C'mon Marron, shake a leg, are you coming or not?" Krillin's voice echoed through the large house.  
  
Marron gave an odd frown. So odd that it might have been a smile. "Yeah Dad," She said, "I'm coming" 


End file.
